Tender Locomotives 0-6-0 “Six-coupled”

The wheel arrangement 0-6-0 stands for a locomotive with three driven axles and no carrying axles. The following designations exist in the different naming systems:

Six-coupled

UIC: C

Whyte: 0-6-0

Switzerland: 3/3

France: 030

Turkey: 33

The “Royal George”, built by Timothy Hackworth for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1827 is considered the first 0-6-0 locomotive. Some more of this type followed in the next years, but greater numbers started to appear in the 1850s. While tank locomotives of this wheel arrangement were built in equal numbers around the world, tender locomotives were the most widespread in Great Britain. The DX Goods, introduced on the LNWR in 1858 by John Ramsbottom, was a 0-6-0 that can be considered the first really mass-produced locomotive with a total of 943.

The 0-6-0 had its great advantage in that it could use all its weight as adhesive weight, so it had more pulling power than all other three-axle locomotives. With three axles rigidly mounted in the frames, small curve radii were usually no problem, while locomotives with four driving axles often needed some measures to improve curve negotiation. The downside of this was the absence of leading or trailing axles which could guide the locomotive at speed or in curves. These features made them perfectly suited for goods trains and as shunters, but also for passenger trains in hilly regions where a huge pulling power was needed and high speeds were impossible due to the topography.

In the UK, the 0-6-0 became the ultimate goods locomotive for nearly 100 years. In this country, where tracks were usually laid very carefully, even locomotives without carrying axles could be operated at higher speeds. Because nearly all British 0-6-0 locomotives had their cylinders inside the frames, running characteristics at speed were even better. So they could not only stand their ground as goods locomotives well into the 20th century, but could also be operated with passenger trains at speeds of more than 50 mph or 80 km/h. The Southern Railway even introduced their class Q1 as an austerity locomotive in World War II.

In other countries, the 0-6-0 was soon relegated to shunting service and short haul freight trains since it could not keep pace with the increased speed in freight traffic around the turn to the 20th century. Additionally, eight- and ten-coupled freight locomotives had to be introduced earlier elsewhere than in the UK. Even passenger trains in the mountains now required larger locomotives with heavier boilers. In the United States, where locomotives without leading axles were only used as shunters (here called switchers), the wheel arrangement 0-6-0 almost never saw service outside of yards or industrial tracks where speeds above 20 mph or 32 km/h were uncommon.